Cecil Beaton's New York
Cecil Beaton's New York
Cecil Beaton's New York

Cecil Beaton's New York

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Cecil Beaton.

B.T. Batsford Ltd. London. 1938. First edition. British edition. Hardback; yellow cloth-bound boards, black title to front board and spine, purple top edge, dust jacket. viii, 261 pages. Colour frontispiece, over 100 b&w photographs and line-drawings within the text. English. 230 x 160mm. 0.8kg. . Good, in good dust jacket; shelf wear to jacket, some short tears and loss to forecorners and spine ends, light rubbing to folds, spine slightly toned, not price-clipped; spotting affecting boards, spine, and internal pages, small heraldic label of Hintlesham to front free endpaper, lower forecorner of front free endpaper torn away.

A first edition of Beaton's witty and glamourous snapshot of Manhattan in the 1930s. Cecil Beaton first sailed to New York in November 1928, it was the first of many annual trips he was to take, spending the winter in a hotel in Manhattan creating portraits and fashion photographs for Condé Nast. It was in New York that Beaton steadily built up a reputation as a leading international photographer, American society embraced him enthusiastically and he was able to earn significant sums of money. Cecil's Beaton's New York is a personal account of the city - its style, exuberance, diversity, people and culture. Beaton translates the visual impressions he has gained from New York into written prose. He talks about the weather, the architecture, transport, the food, the press, crime, the museums, the theatres, and society figures. The text is accompanied by numerous black-and-white photographs and line drawings by Beaton, supplemented with additional press photos and images by photographers such as E. O. Hoppé, Higdon Cato and Ben Sahn. The layout for the book was overseen by Brian Cook of Batsford and Cook devised a vibrant wrap-around dust jacket, bright yellow cloth covers and a purple top-edge.